


Barriers to Romancing the Introverted Angler

by Heyerchick



Series: The Introverted Angler [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Humor, M/M, POV Hannibal, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1856751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heyerchick/pseuds/Heyerchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal Lecter’s singular obsession with Will Graham leads to reflections on a once well-ordered existence now afflicted by 100% less sexual intimacy than hoped and 700% more canine than anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barriers to Romancing the Introverted Angler

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to share a little playfulness while I'm working to bring the authentic character voices of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter clear in my imagination. A wee bit of neither-nothing-nor-something :) Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Not so much canon compliant as canon adjacent.

**Barrier 1: Companion animals**

Dr Hannibal Lecter’s culinary philosophy, while embracing the flavour and firmness a wild, Nietzschean existence bestowed upon fish and game, demanded the humane, ethical rearing and butchering of livestock. Like the pagans, he believed the horse to be divine, the beasts of burden sacred. His personal philosophy did not encompass companion animals, nor did he subscribe to the pervasive populist theories on the psychological efficacy of pet ownership in general. Hannibal was, however, in a position to observe and verify the unfortunate efficacy of certain specific companion animals. 

He regarded Will Graham’s motley hoard of strays with a vexation not entirely free of envy. 

His light-stimulated, chemically-enhanced, expertly calibrated therapeutic intrusions into Will’s precious, fragile psyche paled in comparison to the carefree predations of an exuberant, anchoring pack. It was something of a moot point whether Will owned the dogs, or the dogs owned Will, when the practical end result was the same: where Hannibal was exerting himself to be the irresistible force in Will’s mind, Winston, Buster and ‘everyone’ were the inconveniently immovable object in Will’s life.

Not that the dogs weren’t delightful. Healthy, happy, loving, loyal and possessing zero discernment. They liked Hannibal, and not because the extensive practice of his particular psychopathy lent itself to a calm, assertive demeanour to which most canines naturally, gladly submitted. Will’s dogs liked everyone. But at least the warmth of the welcome they extended whenever Hannibal visited Will’s little house encouraged a broadly similar sentiment in Will, whose introversion was generally weaponised. 

Still. Hannibal was certain that, while every effort of his powerful intellect was fixed on moulding Will to realise his full, radiant potential and secure his ultimate physical and mental wellbeing, Will’s was equally fixed on those damnable dogs.

No amount of psychic driving could condition Will to present his errant self at Hannibal’s door before he’d fed the dogs. Fed and walked them. Purchased them, on one hastily suppressed occasion, Ol’ Roy Munchy Bone dog treats (chemical cocktail flavour!), an egregious lapse in taste and judgement that had horrified Will as much as it had Hannibal. Although, sadly, _not_ because they were purchased from Walmart. 

To be fair to Will, an astounding return to consciousness at the Pamper Pickup desk of the Happy Tails Holistic Dog Spa, where the pack had endured an unprecedented day under the scourge of ‘pretty paws’ pedicures, crystal energy healing and unspecified flower remedies, did more to convince him of the knife’s edge upon which his sanity teetered than any corpse totem or articulated angel. 

The pack had Hannibal to thank for broadening their horizons. Hannibal, meanwhile, offered up thanks for Will’s anti-social predilection for online banking and mistaken conviction that W!nst0nGr@h@m was a secure and cunning password.

Not that Hannibal’s bracingly unorthodox therapeutic practices were wholly free from failure. The most delicately planted seeds of suggestion had borne the occasional unnerving fruit when assimilated by Will’s misfiring synapses. A simple, noble desire to open good Will’s mind to sharing the profound beauties of art and culture so fundamental to Hannibal’s entire existence, _unspeakably_ subverted. He could not look at that (tragically growing) collection of little dog figurines without shuddering. 

Hannibal would never actually harm the animals, of course. He might have sought out authentic recipes for Chinese di yang, ‘mutton of the earth,’ after a particularly fruitless therapy session in which Will’s concept of family was firmly established as fur-bearing, but he relented sufficiently to serve the dishes to Will with a nice lean fillet of dental hygienist, and virtuously refrained from enlivening their dinner conversation with an extensively researched discourse on the domesticated dog’s role in world culinary history or current culinary practice.

No. No harm could come to the dogs. Not at Hannibal’s hands. He couldn’t do that to his dear Will, couldn’t break his tender dog-hoarding heart like that, not even when one of them broke wind in the Bentley.

**Barrier 2: Interpersonal distance**

The concept of personal space, established through animal experimentation in the 1950s, remained a fruitful subject of psychological enquiry today. Hannibal, who had a standing appointment for ‘conversations’ with Will Graham, was well-versed in the vagaries of his favourite patient’s specific boundaries of intimacy. 

In the earliest days of their acquaintance, Will had barely been able to tolerate being in the same room as Hannibal. It had taken an instructively staged murder, interference in an ongoing investigation, lethal if poorly aimed use of force and a co-ordinated ambush by Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom just to get Will _into_ the room. Once the jaws of the therapeutic trap successfully closed around the elusive Mr Graham, it required a further three full sessions for Hannibal to coax him down from the rafters. Even now, he expended an inordinate amount of exasperated energy pursuing Will around the room. 

Not that Hannibal was without his victories. Saving a random, unworthy life in the back of an ambulance at the end of an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to obstruct justice _had_ encouraged Will to at least smile at Hannibal before refusing to eat at his table. Additionally, the combination of a near-death experience for Will and a briskly revitalising fight-to-the-death for Hannibal had eroded several feet of physical distance when Will sidled up to sit on the edge of Hannibal’s desk to investigate his assorted injuries and – endearingly – apologise for embroiling him in serial killing.

While it was quite within Hannibal’s powers to re-enact either of these emotionally evocative scenarios ad nauseum for Will’s benefit, he could not consider this a sustainable strategy. He might be able to secure a steady stream of appealing victims to resuscitate or eviscerate as appropriate, but unless they were trespassing Virginian fishing enthusiasts, FBI agents or patients from Hannibal’s own practice, Will’s proximity was always the rogue variable.

When Hannibal elected to express dignified, ethically-edited frustration to his refined, informed psychiatrist Dr DuMaurier, she suggested that obtaining a service dog for Will to hold might keep him in his seat. Hannibal knew of three Baltimore-based, irritating Integrative Psychiatry practices from which he could obtain such an animal. That was not the difficulty. The germane issues lay, firstly, in the near-inevitability of Hannibal’s inability to reclaim Will’s somewhat obsessive attention during such a canine-enhanced therapeutic session, and then in forcibly preventing him from taking the dog home with him afterwards. 

Hannibal suspected Dr DuMaurier of satire. 

Fortunate for Bedelia’s longevity that, when he rather pointedly directed their exchange from elusive patients to the more fruitful topic of over-reaching psychiatrists, she had several insightful observations she was eager to contribute.

When Will walked into his office for their next conversation, Hannibal had to admit that he was no nearer a solution to his most pressing difficulty. He was committed to opening Will’s mind, guiding him to realise and exult in his true murderous nature, ready to pursue any and every therapeutic avenue to help Will as his patient. Securing Will’s friendship was a rare personal commitment. A very private desire to know and equally important to him, to be known. Will had passed every test and challenge of friendship Hannibal had set, confirming his worthiness of Hannibal’s trust without evincing much in the way of either desire or gratitude for the magnitude of that gift, let alone reciprocating.

Baffling to Hannibal Lecter, whose cultured charm and winning personality were legendary in the uppermost echelons of Baltimore society and his wider professional circle. Everyone Hannibal met liked him. He had well-wishers even among those he went on to kill. Jack Crawford, urbane head of the FBI’s behavioural sciences, mortal enemy and closet gourmand? Endlessly grateful for the gift of Hannibal’s inventive gastronomy and openly appreciative of his company.

Will Graham, though? Appealingly tortured, empathetic genius? A truly beautiful man, as close to Hannibal’s ideal as it was possible for frail humanity to aspire, despite also being a stubborn, slightly scruffy, dog-hoarding, indefatigable angler who had taken to strewing outerwear and accoutrements about the office, when not walking in and out of the house at will. Didn’t find Hannibal “that interesting.” 

Hannibal was an imaginative, capable man in his full power, fearless in indulging his desires and fully satisfying his many appetites. His greatest desire was to share the deepest intimacy and connection with Will, to take their relationship as far as it was possible for two friends, two equals, to go. He had marshalled arguments, calculated strategies to demolish any trifling objection on Will’s part – incipient insanity, heterosexuality, and so forth – if only he could engineer the circumstance that would actually bring them together in sympathy, not merely in therapy.

Which was his problem in a nutshell. There were simply more avenues to overcoming resistance open to him as the psychiatrist than as the man. It was a point of principal with him that he drugged his lovers for their comfort and protection _after_ submission, not in order to _get_ them to submit. While Hannibal could, and often did, imagine scenarios in which he managed to corner Will long enough to kiss him for the first time, his mind obstinately blanked on the immediate (potentially violent) aftermath. He, the feared and notorious Chesapeake Ripper, artistically sadistic stuff of nightmare, literally could not conceive any circumstance capable of seducing Will Graham into submission. 

At least…not any circumstance not involving a puppy. 

A _puppy._

It could not be borne.

The most infamous, accomplished and attractive cannibalistic serial killer in America had his _pride_. He had, if he wanted to continue on in his life’s great aesthetic work, to be practical. He had his commitments. Between the surly teenager in the basement and the dazed FBI trainee in his inconveniently rurally secluded kill room secure en suite, let alone furnishing the therapeutic drip feed of corpses vital to Will’s continuing evolution and meat for endless elaborate gourmet meals for Jack and Alana, the work was never done. 

His resolve must remain steely. Even when, relieved to be experiencing an increasingly rare stable and present day, Will suddenly smiled right at Hannibal, his lovely glasz eyes bright, expression candid with gratitude and brow charmingly crinkled beneath those tousled curls. 

In the depths of Hannibal’s meticulously constructed, exquisitely furnished mind palace, a dark and horrifying presence intruded itself upon his fastidious consciousness. In the light and airy stillness, on a grand staircase, against the foot of a great bronze Riace warrior, incomparable Greek statuary dating from the 5th century BC, something small and squeaky stirred to cock its leg…


End file.
